Season of the Witch

by Jaid Black

  His cock was hard with need, her labored breathing arousing him beyond reason. He continued to draw from her clit, sucking at it in the way he’d found she preferred.

  “Oh my God,” Lucia gasped. Her fingers threaded through his braids. Her legs wrapped around his neck, pulling his face in as close to her flesh as ’twas possible. He sucked on her pussy, growling against it. Her legs trembled from around his neck. “Cainnech!”

  She burst on a groan, her entire body shaking. Her nipples stabbed up against his palms as she rode out the wave of pleasure.

  Cainnech released her cunt from his mouth. His breathing ragged with desire, he brought his large body to rest a’tween his wife’s thighs. He guided the head of his cock to her wet, ready opening. “Call me ‘husband’,” he rasped. Every muscle in his body was clenched in need—of the words as much as her body. He kept his erection pressed against the entrance to her pussy. “Say it, wife.”

  Lucia was the most aroused she’d been in her entire life, despite his sobering dictate. Her breathing was labored, her entire body on fire. She wanted him to fuck her more than she wanted air to breathe. But the word husband…

  Cainnech understood her reticence to refer to him by that name was her way of remaining noncommittal about staying in the past versus trying to return to the future. It had only been two days—emotions like this were unheard of after two damn days!—yet denying she felt their connection any less than he did was doing nothing but lying to herself while hurting him.

  “Please fuck me,” Lucia breathed out. Their gazes clashed. She could feel his cock twitch and his muscles instinctively tighten, but he didn’t breach her. “Please fuck me.”

  She could hear the sexual tension in his breathing, feel it in his entire body, but he was unyielding. Lucia realized she had to make a choice. She wasn’t ready to commit to staying in the past, but the thought of being without him terrified and depressed her more than she wished it did.

  Her breathing, still heavy, came out in pants. “Please fuck me…” She swallowed, her eyes widening. “Husband.”

  Cainnech impaled her on a groan, seating himself to the hilt. Lucia moaned loudly, the primal ecstasy inherent to initial penetration overwhelming and intoxicating. He rode her hard, fucking her like a wild animal. She moaned and groaned, every thrust driving her closer to the edge.

  “Who does yer pussy belong tae?” he asked thickly. “Tell me.”

  “You.”

  “What is my name?”

  “Cain—husband.”

  His nostrils flared as he fucked her harder. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh permeated through the bedroom. Lucia cried out as a second, harder orgasm uncoiled in her belly and burst.

  “Yer pussy is mine,” he ground out. He fucked her harder and faster. “As are ye.”

  Lucia wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight as she felt his muscles tense. He came on a roar, hot cum shooting inside her. He kept fucking her deeper and faster as he bellowed out his orgasm, branding her cunt with every stroke.

  When at last he slowed, both of their breathing still heavy, he collapsed on top of her, careful not to injure her. Tears stung the backs of Lucia’s eyes and she didn’t even know why. Cainnech must have noticed because his gray gaze took on a puzzled look.

  She grabbed her husband’s face with both hands and guided it down to hers. Their lips met in a kiss and stayed that way while they clung to each other as if they’d never let go.

  Chapter Eleven

  December 22, 1265 A.D.

  Extremely not used to paying any man attention long enough to get to know him much less marry him, Lucia busied herself with engineering work. Luckily Cainnech seemed okay with that, which she was grateful for. She didn’t want to hurt the surly giant just because the death of her family had caused her to close herself off to others.

  Caring about someone was a risk. Loving them was a vulnerability she’d never have purposely allowed. That choice had been removed from her. She just hoped one day she felt gratitude over that fact instead of hesitation and fear.

  Sitting in the great hall at the head table, Lucia sent Niall and Gabhran off to Smithy to put together more solar panels. Hopefully with so many hands to help, heating the closed-off half of the castle wouldn’t take nearly as long as the first half had. It was her second project of the day, the first having led to a dead end.

  Lucia had spent the earliest part of the morning trying to figure out how it was that her desk lamp could still work. It made no scientific sense. Weirder yet, anything she plugged into the two sockets that had been built into the lamp worked as well. She frowned and fretted over all plausible engineering explanations, but came up empty.

  Had the time portal remained open in that one area only? And if that was possible, which her presence here signified it most definitely was, could others come through it? The implications were too overwhelming to consider.

  “My men will build their huts inside yon walls,” Cainnech said, jarring her back into the present moment. He sat down beside her.

  She hesitated long enough to collect her thoughts. “What about the villagers?” she asked. She smiled up at Iona as the head of the kitchen set breakfast trenchers down in front of her and Cainnech. Iona smiled back, curtseyed, and disappeared. “If we are attacked, they’ll be slaughtered first,” Lucia quietly pointed out.

  He was silent for a moment as he watched her eat. His next words surprised her.

  “I heard what ye said tae Gabhran,” Cainnech muttered. “Aboot Scotland. ’Tis why ye are concerned o’er an attack.”

  Lucia’s eyes widened. She swallowed the bite of egg in her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He shrugged. “Mayhap it does no’ have tae be that way.”

  Lucia had already considered that possibility, but feared messing with the future in any way, shape or form. The butterfly effect and all that. She explained as much to Cainnech.

  “Is no’ the fact ye are here interfering with the future tae begin with?”

  She blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I can see where yer mind is goin’.” He frowned. “Dinna start tae thinkin’ ye should leave me, wife.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re a little too observant?” she asked drolly.

  “Aye.”

  She snorted at that, amused in spite of not wanting to be. “I thought I made it clear last night I wasn’t leaving you, husband.” She shrugged. “Can’t we go to the future together?”

  Cainnech stilled. “’Tis happy I am ye have decided no’ tae leave me, yet ye needs must forget aboot yer future world.”

  “I can’t,” Lucia said honestly. “It’s much safer there than it is here. Sort of.”

  His sigh was that of a long-suffering man. “Ye dinna believe I can protect ye?”

  “It’s not that!” Lucia huffed.

  “Then…?”

  She brought him as up to speed on world events to come as a non-historian could. She couldn’t give exact dates, only general centuries, but her point was made. Bloodshed was imminent.

  “Besides,” Lucia whispered, “if we change the future, what happens to me? What if my parents never meet and I just dissolve here on the spot?” Perhaps she was conflating the movie Back to the Future with actual science, but it was all she had to go on. “Nobody in the future knows time travel even exists.” She splayed her hands. “And I say that as someone with top secret clearance, which I had to have because of my last work project.”

  “I dinna ken yer top secrets, yet I ken that even the wee smallest of things happens with reason.”

  She swallowed heavily as she stared at him. He made good sense. Maybe time had a way of working itself out, even if some details changed. “Would you be angry if I wanted some mead?” she croaked out.

  Cainnech’s amusement was obvious. “Nay, I dinna mind. Drink it as ye will now that I ken ye love tae fuck me.”

  Her face colored. “Keep yo
ur voice down!” she chastised. “That’s private between us!”

  His expression was confused as he slid his chalice of mead over to her. “I want every mon tae ken ye love tae fuck only me.”

  “You get jealous if my gown shows too much cleavage, but talking about our sex life does not make you jealous?”

  “Nay.”

  Lucia sighed. “I will never understand some of your ways.” She took a swig from the chalice. “But I’m willing to try your plan.”

  “Eh?”

  “Changing the future. At least part of it.”

  Cainnech grunted. “Call me husband.”

  “Husband.”

  He grunted again. “No’ just whilst alone, yet also afore others.”

  Now it was Lucia grunting. “You need to quit commanding me to do things.” She frowned. “But fine. In this one instance I will allow it.”

  His smile should have irritated her, but he looked too adorable. Like a kid who’d gotten his way. She shook her head, but grinned.

  “What should we do first?” Cainnech asked.

  It took her an extended moment to realize he’d switched topics again. He rarely spoke a word to anyone, yet where Lucia was concerned he apparently said everything that came to his mind. She’d have to get used to the seemingly random switches.

  “I’d start by extending the walls to encompass the entire village,” she whispered. “And by doing whatever it is we need to do to further the reach of your power.”

  “Go against Alaxandair?” he muttered.

  “Not against so much as…” Lucia frowned. “Well, sort of against, but more like demanding autonomy for the Highlands when you’re in a position to do it.” She shrugged. “Or at least the Hebrides.”

  Cainnech grunted. “Highlanders feel no more allegiance tae Scotland than they did tae the Viking jarls.”

  “Then why side with them?”

  “Less tax, less interference with our daily comings and goings, less war.”

  Lucia nodded her understanding. “I don’t know enough about history to help change its outcome for an entire kingdom. What I do know is the Highlands are remote and difficult to access—even in my time—so if I had to make a choice I would focus on the terrain few men know as well as you likely do.”

  “Ye think Highlanders should separate from Scotland?”

  “I don’t know.” The very thought of breaking up the magnificent, picturesque country was depressing. And who could say if Scotland would fare better or worse as its own entity anyway? But it mattered to Cainnech so it mattered to her. “Let’s just say I’d make the Highlands—or at least the Hebrides—harder to breach than it already is. Future Scottish monarchs will become nothing more than figureheads until they don’t exist at all. There’s nothing that can be done about that.”

  “’Tis depressing, that.”

  Lucia came from a world that was slowly stitching itself together, but Cainnech dwelled in a world where boundaries mattered a lot. Men spent their entire lives fighting over those borderlines, risking everything to ensure that their culture and people lived on well after them. From his perspective, she understood why he felt as he did. And yet…

  “Let’s just start small,” Lucia suggested. “Build walls around all of Eilean Donnain. When other clans see how prosperous and safe it is here then you can offer your protection—or whatever it is you do—for their allegiance and tax.”

  “And soldiers. Even now I wish for more men.”

  “You’re training Gabhran so why not train others as well?”

  Cainnech grunted. “’Tis true, that. I saw several in the village who mayhap are promising.”

  Lucia hesitated. As usual, nothing got past his notice. One of his dark eyebrows rose inquiringly.

  “No war,” she said quietly.

  “Eh?”

  “You want me to agree to stay in this time then you have to agree to no more war.”

  “Lucia,” he said softly, “I canna. Ye ken that the Vikings will mayhap invade again?”

  Her nostrils flared. “If you build the walls as I said to then it isn’t a worry. They can try, but they won’t succeed. Especially if I’m the one who engineers the building of those walls.”

  Cainnech considered that. “And if they raid afore the walls are built?”

  “I suppose there would be no choice but to defend Eilean Donnain.” She sighed. “But if you want me to agree to give up on returning to the future…” Her gaze clashed with his. “Then you need to agree not to turn me into a widow.”

  “Have I gone daft or did ye just show a care for my safety?”

  She grunted. He grinned.

  “I assure ye, milady wife, I seek no wars. I’m a mon who’s seen thirty and six years and wielded a sword for most of them. Bluidy battlin’ is furthest from my mind. I have earned my new life and wish tae settle intae it.”

  “Thirty-six. I never knew your age before.”

  “Tae old for ye?”

  Lucia looked at him as though he really was daft. “Perfect age to me. I’m thirty-three.”

  It was a good thing Cainnech hadn’t started eating his breakfast yet because he likely would have choked. “Ye have seen thirty years and three?”

  She frowned. “You say that like I’m an old hag!”

  “I dinna care if ye have seen a thousand years.” His frown matched hers. “But how can ye have the look of a young lass?”

  Lucia tried not to take his question personally, but it smarted her pride a bit. “In this world I might not be considered young, but in my world I am considered the perfect age.” Her back stiffened. “We are healthier in the future. We live longer lives than you do here. Therefore, it’s not uncommon for a woman to wait until her thirties or forties to marry and have children. Assuming she wants to do either of those things ever.”

  “I dinna mean tae injure yer tender feelings.”

  Why did men here always assume weakness? “My feelings aren’t particularly tender,” she sniffed. Damn it! When she’d tossed Gabhran a similar line she’d meant it, but in this moment? She was feeling rather tender. “But now that you think I’m an old woman maybe I should do you the favor of leaving,” she grandly announced.

  Cainnech grunted. It was his kill-the-bullshit sound. “Ye are no’ an old wench, just a vexing one.”

  Lucia realized she was behaving like a baby, but damn if she wasn’t feeling as easily injured as one. “You promise?”

  He grunted. It was his aye grunt, but still.

  “Do you promise?” she repeated a bit louder.

  “Aye.” His gray eyes showed a hint of a twinkle. “Are yer untender feelings better now?”

  “Sort of.” Lucia picked up the chalice and downed its contents in one long swig. She banged the cup on the table. “Assuming you’re telling the truth.”

  “I dinna lie.” His eyebrows rose. “Shall I take tae my feet and shout out tae all men here how much I love tae fuck my comely wife?”

  “No!” she hissed.

  “Then?”

  She sighed as she ran a beleaguered hand through her hair. “I don’t like it that people here think I’m old.”

  “They dinna. They think ye tae be a lass.”

  “Let me rephrase that. I don’t like it that people here think my age is old.”

  Cainnech shrugged. “Age is no’ important tae a Highlander.” His forehead wrinkled. “Though I will be statin’ yer age as twenty and three.”

  Lucia’s expression fell. She looked down, absently staring at the table.

  “No’ for the reason ye are thinkin’, wife.” Cainnech reached across the table and took her jaw in his hand. He nudged it up until she met his gaze. “Only because the gossips will say yer youth comes from the devil’s hands. If ye dinna wish for me tae battle, ’tis best do I no’ start my rule as laird with more talk of yer witchery.”

  “I thought they didn’t mind me being a witch.”

  “They dinna. Yet word has a way of traveling from clan tae
clan. ’Tis best tae avoid superstition as much as possible.”

  Lucia begrudgingly conceded the point. “All right then.”

  Cainnech growled. “Ye still believe I think ye tae be old.”

  She shrugged.

  “Do I need tae fuck the sense back intae ye?”

  “Maybe.”

  He couldn’t mask his surprise. Or his grin.

  “Well then, milady wife, ye had only tae say as much.”

  One moment she was sitting on the bench and a blink of an eye later she was in Cainnech’s massive arms. Her telltale shriek let her husband—and everyone else in the great hall—know she’d been taken off guard.

  “I’m takin’ my comely wife up tae our bedchamber!” his deep voice boomed out as he carried her toward the stairs. “’Twill mayhap be a while. She canna get enough of her husband ruttin’ a’tween her thighs.”

  Lucia’s cheeks went up in flames at the precise moment the great hall broke into cheers and bawdy jests. Cainnech cradled her like a treasure as he kissed her forehead, making it impossible to get mad at him.

  Chapter Twelve

  December 24, 1265 A.D.

  Lucia spent the next couple of days primarily with Iona. They worked themselves to the point of exhaustion in order to have all the food prepared for tonight’s Christmas Eve feast and tomorrow’s Christmas Day celebration. Because the entire village was invited, many of the clanswomen pitched in by baking and cooking in their own huts. The castle’s kitchen was simply too packed to hold another body.

  “We’re going to need to have the kitchen extended after the holidays.” Lucia sighed. “Twice the size? Three times bigger? What do you think?”

  Iona thought that over. “Mayhap three, milady. Twice its current size will be plenty for a while, yet with so many of the laird’s men takin’ wives…”

  “I see your point.” Lucia grinned. “Lots of babies.”

  “Aye.”

  Lucia studied Iona’s face. “Are you happy about your upcoming wedding to Cawley?”